Hot idea du jour

I'm transcribing this idea not because its new or even revolutionary, but because I simply wanted to do a self-brainstorm.

This idea was inspired from some discussions at the recent E-Learn conference in Vancouver.

Mobile learning.

Hmmm....how can I accomplish that within my workplace? I mean, anything's possible with a little effort and research.

So, here's the challenge for me. Find a way to easily and effectively deploy browser- or Flash-based content to a team of potential JiT learners via their Blackberries. I threw this idea at my boss and he's intrigued. So part of this morning was spent digging for resources on Blackberry development and some of the concepts and constraints.

Stay tuned. This could get interesting.

Technorati Tags: elearn2005

E-LEARN 2005 thoughts - Thursday PM

Quite a full afternoon of events, starting with the Networking lunch. Each table had a specific "subject/topic" and I probably could have sat at 3 different tables and enjoyed each experience. At my table (Courseware Development & Authoring Tools) were attendees from New South Wales TAFE (Australia), Limerick University (Ireland), Sweden, Carnegie-Mellon University (USA), Foreign Service Institute - US Department of State, the BC Institute of Technology (Canada), and yours truly . It was quite interesting to see the different approaches taken to designing, developing and delivering courses in the online world. Some common choices of tools, to be sure, but the overall thought processes were markedly different. Some were focused on blended learning, some were looking at dedicated self-paced options. We all faced similar challenges with adoption/awareness and buy-in, as well as challenges with just getting content developed and maintained. Common issues with no geographical barriers.

I felt quite badly for the presenter who was stuck with a Mac/PC issue and wasn't able to get her presentation on the Learning Object Life Cycle. Heinz Dreher from one of my morning sessions was in attendance and we had a rather thought-provoking chat on the way up to our respective rooms. We discussed some of the issues from her presentation as well as the panel discussion before lunch. That panel had obviously touched something in him, because he observed that a lot of people are "missing the point" about all this learning development. "We've forgotten why we're doing it and who we're doing it for," he said. He's right, of course. As designers, a lot of us tend to get lost in the tools and the technologies and we really forget about the learner experience. Do we know what they want? Do we care? Should we? Again, more food for thought.

I love the little sidebar discussions like that one. I get a lot more out of those than I do from some longer presentations. Its she sheer rush of those little "eureka!" moments that truly make this job worthwhile.

Finally, I had the opportunity to sit through another award winner, Diane Newton's presentation on the role of the Australian Army instructor in the e-learning process. As a former military person, I had a personal interest in her presentation, but I was really surprised to see both the breadth and depth of content that the Australian Army's Training Command had created and made available to its soldiers. Not surprisingly, there were some cultural challenges with taking this approach and I can see a lot of the growing pains, but I can also see some real advantages to much of what they are trying to accomplish. The depth of her reasearch work was excellent. Almost makes me want to go back to the consulting world and make nice-nice with the folks at DND.

Technorati Tags: elearn2005

E-LEARN thoughts - Thursday AM

To start the day, Curt Bonk from the University of Indiana was the morning Keynote speaker. Touching on his session from Monday he talked a lot about the sharing of knowledge, particularly Open Courseware, Open Source tools and the like.

I was amazed at the sheer volume of academic materials available online. One project of note was the OOPS initiative from Lucifer Chu from Taiwan, where he is translating all of the MIT open courseware into one of the dialects of Chinese as a largely volunteer project.

Heinz Dreher from Curtin University in Perth, Australia, showed some of his efforts with a natural language grading/marking tool. I have to say that, as a veteran of the multiple choice examination world (MCP, ITIL, etc.) I welcome the inclusion of natural language assessment in the e-learning world. While still largely a prototype, I think it holds great promise for the corporate world.

The folks from the University of Saskatchewan talked about their work on Learning Object Content Management systems. Wow. Simple, clean, and lots of interesting features to really glean worthwhile information about learner activity, and to stream learner paths, while working in a LO environment. Their LORNET efforts are part of a national initiative focused on telelearning using learning objects. I can't wait to tinker with their environment.

Next up before lunch was a panel session on Future Trends in Learning, Technology and Standards, and one of my favourite speakers, Wayne Hodgins, was on the panel. Wayne is always a great speaker and entertaining as hell. I had the opportunity to hear his keynote address at the Microsoft Certified Trainer conference in New Orleans in 2000. Awesome stuff. Even though Wayne tends to be looking anywhere from 5-100 years out, its still thought-provoking to see some of the patterns and trends illustrated in some of his forecasts and planning.

What struck me was that Wayne is right-on about the need to remove the "e" from e-Learning. Learning technologies tend to overwhelm the importance of pedagogy (echoing Curt Bonk) and that there needs to be a better focus on "personalized learning" versus "ubiquitous" learning. Sheer volume of information is useless without context, audience, medium, and timeliness. Needless to say I have much to think about when I return to the office. We also need to address, he says, "un-learning"...that is, how to transform previous learned behaviour and enforce new behaviours and new patterns of action for better results. (Shades of what I experienced trying to break the traditional mould of applications training.) His final comments was that the personalization of learning cannot be something that we thrust upon the user. Too much choice is as deadly as not enouch choice. Personalization must be user-centric, rather than what I'll call "negative option marketing"

As usual, a really fantastic panel session, although I admit that the speaker from Simon Fraser really had a hard act to follow and his content was somewhat pale in comparison to Wayne's.

Technorati Tags: elearn2005

E-LEARN thoughts - Wednesday PM

I changed my schedule so I could attend Dr. Vladimir Uskov's session on Technology for Advanced e-Learning. His expertise is evident and he has been able to build a lot of in-house tools to support his own e-learning efforts at Bradley U. It was educational (no pun intended) to see where some of the barriers exist when trying to offer the full virtual classoom experience. (Video compression/bandwidth issues, etc.) He clearly has some success with his work at the University. Looks like something to emulate, in principle if not in specific application. )

Knowledge retention is always an issue and I took in the session entitled "You want me to remember what??" Their tool was the "Profound Learning System" being prototyped through a number of diferent groups learning Outlook. The results of their test series (immediate posttest, 30 days posttest, 60 days posttest) were quite interesting to me. As a classroom veteran its a little alarming to see how retention drops off after a relatively short time.

(Comment from audience member sotto voce: "what a stupid question to ask" after seeing one of the posttest reviews. Odd and vitriolic reaction.)

The charts were a little tough to view, but I'm looking forward to picking the presenter's brain after the session about PLS and what it could mean to us.

(Had the chance to speak with him and he very kindly pointed me in the direction of the vendor who is apparently re-tooling their product as we speak. )

My final session is with the group from Belgium, presenting Tools2Team: a web-based Knowledge Management tool. At first I thought they weren't serious about their features wish list, but they really are trying to add a staggering amount of capacity to a web-based tool. Could it really be all things to all people? So far it looks promising in principle, if a little rough in its initial presentation.

Technorati Tags: elearn2005

E-LEARN thoughts - Wednesday AM

Quite an enjoyable opening session this morning with Allison Rosette where she talked a lot about convergence and knowledge transfer.

I admit that I am somewhat of a traditionalist at heart, so her references to Mary Broad's research on Transfer struck a chord, but I was particularly interested in her statement that the distinctions between 'before, during and after' are starting to disappear. Very interesting food for thought. I can really see some concrete ways to implement some of the 6 strategies for converging work & learning.

Quite disappointed to see that one of my morning presenters hadn't made it to Vancouver. Too bad the staff here didn't pick that one up on their cancellation sheet.

Enjoyed the presentation from the ladies at Penn State about their blended learning efforts. Funny what you can accomplish without a significant capital investment.

The session about incorporating blogs as learning and knowledge management tools was a confirmation of a personal suspicion. Had the chance to sit with Wesley Fryer and take shameless advantage of the wireless signals to blog, share ideas, and demonstrate some of our own JiT transfer. Life imitating art, after a fashion.

Technorati Tags: elearn2005

E-LEARN 2005 Link

Please bear with me while I recover some archived posts on e-learning and some of my own experiences with processes, tools and techniques. I look forward to staying in touch with some of the folks I met at E-LEARN 2005 as well as making new contacts.

Comments and input and idea-shares are always welcome.

Technorati Tags: elearn2005

Live facilitation thoughts

Sitting in the Virtual Classroom demo that S. arranged for us for today, I was thinking back to some of the lessons learned in my own experiences with these kinds of e-learning events.

As someone who was primarily a classroom instructor, it was a very interesting switch to the virtual class environment. As a classroom instructor, you depend on participant feedback, body language, expressions and all that "human" interaction. For example, you have no doubts that the participant in physically "there" for a classroom session. In a virtual session, its like you're teaching where your students are on the other side of a wall from you.

Let's talk about what's "missing":

• Visual cues from the student - all the body language, facial expressions, signs of participation in an activity
• Visual cues from the facilitator - as above, body language, gestures, plus all the "on-scene" help in labs and activities
• General classroom synergy - no experience can adequately capture what happens when you bring a group of people together for some kind of learning activity.

We should also talk about some of the general advantages:

• Location independence - facilitator and students don't have to be co-located
• Private communication - students can communicate directly with the instructor to ask questions or make comments through a chat tool.
• Archived communication - as above, questions can be raised at any time via chat and saved for future reference
• Multiple media/method integration - a richness of presentation can be achieved with very little effort. Much of this work could be done on the fly or on-demand.

Some of the overall disadvantages can be debated ad infinitum, and I'd never say that synchronous facilitation is a panacea, but it is an effective tool at the facilitator's disposal.

What I do want to share here are some of my learning experiences with live sessions and some things that I have found to be important for my own ongoing use.

Language:

I am not necessarily a natural comedian, but I often use carefully-selected pieces of humour in my normal classroom delivery. For some reason, a lot of humour and sarcasm and wry observations are far less effective online. This effect is usually attributed to the lack of visual cues. Misinterpretation of comments becomes a risk factor to consider in delivery and planning.

Delivery:

Off-the-cuff delivery is a bit of a challenge while engaged in an online session, and I found that some of my normal rapid-fire delivery simply didn't 'reach' some of my earlier audiences. There were a lot of contributing factors here, not the least of which was the lack of visual cues, but it had more to do with technology limitations. A lack of bandwidth can really impact what the learner actually receives at their end. For a while I was at a bit of a loss as to what do do, but I looked to a common cousin of e-learning: Radio broadcasting. On-Air broadcasters tend to have a smooth, yet simple, delivery. I took a look at what I was trying to say, and I started to simplify it. I then hit on another idea: scripting. During some of my earlier exposure to e-learning, I was running repeated live sessions. In order to maintain consistency, I started to script my sessions. I built a simple script template where I could include the current step of my presentation, the portion of the script to be delivered at that point, as well as any demos or interactive tasks required. The real advantage of using a system like this was that I could very quickly train new instructors on how to delivery specific modules.

Rehearsal:

A polished, concise delivery really does make a difference. I alluded to some of those issues in the section above, but I figured that 'nailing down' my script would go a long way to a successful delivery. A colleague had a studio-quality 4-track recorder that he brought into our e-learning studio, and I would take the time to run through my presentations and play them back. I can't say enough about what I learned and gained from hearing my own delivery and being able to get closer and closer to "speaking less, but saying more"

Facilities:

One of my previous employers was getting serious about live e-learning delivery in the early days of the trend. Inspired by a US-based training vendor, they actually made dedicated space available, much like a small radio studio, so the sessions could be held in a quiet, controlled environment. Online facilitators have enough to worry about, and it made sense to minimize distractions and outside interference. The 5 computers in the studio were dedicated for delivery, co-facilitation, archiving, practice, and the like.

Integration and Consistency:

One of the major failings of the early efforts in live e-learning was failing to capitalize on that initial push. While our initial efforts were successful, we didn't capitalize on that success and integrate more online sessions with our core classroom offerings. One of my colleagues and I proposed a "talk show" format for a recurring online session (much like a regular radio talk show) in addition to future blended offerings, fiscal pressures at that employer saw them abandon the overall effort in favour of a focus on pre-packaged TBT offerings. Was that the right thing to do? The debate could go on endlessly. The end result was that we lost a valuable way to reach our customer base and keep them connected.

Again, this entry isn't exhaustive or complete...just a small sample. What are your thoughts? What have you experienced in "live" facilitation? What could people do better? What do you dislike about live facilitation as a learning vehicle?

Flat=Bad, Depth=Good

Somewhere up in the Gateway city, there are instructors at a College who are thrilled that I'm getting a chance to use the graphic design diploma I slaved so hard to get 15 years ago.

I spent part of the weekend and all of yesterday re-designing our standard e-learning background and interface because, frankly, I wasn't happy with the one we had whipped up. Now that I think about it, it was a little dull and awfully PowerPoint-like. Strangely enough, I went through this same process of revisions when I was designing the logo and look and feel for my consulting business and its web site. My initial design was flat and "okay" but subsequent revisions and ideas got me to a more 3-D look that almost "leaps" from the screen. That's kinda what I have going now. This might not be a big leap for some, but I'm feeling like what we have now is a bit more polished and 'professional'.

So there's my "lesson learned" for this week: add some depth and some subtle 3-D effects to your interface and you move away from the "slide show" kind of content and towards a more multi-media kind of effect.

Lesson #2: Interactive buttons are a bitch to create (mouseup, mouseover, mousedown, etc.), but well worth the effort at the end.

I had to do a bit of an end-run around the design process and use some of my own software tools to accomplish this end, but I think the result is worth it. We now have a new background, with a bit more "real estate" to work in, and a nice, slick bottom navigation "console" with a new suite of buttons and controls.

I look at it this way: if I can get professional-looking content developed entirely in-house, that has to be a winner somewhere...

Interesting e-learning link

I tripped over this one purely by accident, but it does link to some solid resources and readings.

Epsilon Learning

Webcast/Webconference/e-Work Tools

I was fortunate to have been exposed to e-learning relatively early on the corporate side of things. One of my first e-learning experiences was becoming an online facilitator during CDI's early trials with online learning sessions. In this post I'll talk about some of the tools I've used for these purposes as well as my experiences.

Placeware - This was the very first tool we used for online learning "webcasting" at CDI (sorry, I refuse to call it a "webinar".) Its best market is for conferencing and remote work or collaboration. While at the time it didn't have a good audio/video integration, it was awesome if you wanted to have "breakout" sessions with the online participants. The look and feel was like that of a conference, complete with virtual rooms and virtual "seats". It also offers whiteboards, shared applications, etc. etc. The overall facilitator could even move between "rooms" as needed. Placeware is now owned by Microsoft and is branded as "LiveMeeting."

Centra - We moved to Centra early on in our online learning experiments because it had better audio/video integration. I admit, I really liked the Centra environment. It had the ability to get participant feedback through chat, or other emoticons. The facilitator even has the ability to generate surveys and questions on the fly and incorporate them in the presentation. Our particular installation also let us upload and store presentations converted to HTML, or in their native format (in our case, PowerPoint) so that a participant could always access a presentation even if the Live session was over. We could record and save our content as well. The "on demand" feature was a real bonus for us. Centra offers both hosted and turn-key solutions. They've made a real effort to position themselves as a good online learning platform in addition to being a solid e-work and e-conferencing tool.

At the time we weren't doing a lot of tracking of learner-specific stats, but we did know that participants liked having access to the content whenever they wanted to access it. We weren't doing a lot of Learning Object authoring at the time, so I can't speak for how effective Centra is at handling such things. However, I wouldn't put it past them.

WebEx - I used WebEx at my last employer. While it is a good conferencing support tool, I didn't find it as effective for e-learning. The interface was pretty basic. There was no integrated video service, and (more often than not), I had to use an external Teleconference provider to have any supporting audio, as opposed to something more integrated. The whiteboards, surveys and shared applications worked fine, but after my experience with Centra I was, frankly, disappointed. My biggest complaint about WebEx is that I couldn't provide content "on demand." Even recording and saving content needed a proprietary tool. I could only store recorded content in this proprietary format. Perhaps that was a limitation of a hosted solution, I'm not sure. Basically, if I wanted to have an event running, I needed to actually be there to start a saved version and then monitor it.

What I did like, however, was that I could save a presentation, burn it to CD, include the WebEx player, and then distribute it. For some of our customers who couldn't seem to attend scheduled sessions, this was a great solution. I wouldn't, however, describe WebEx as an e-learning platform. It does conferencing and webcasts, but that's about where it ends.

Again, there's no shortage of Webcasting and online broadcast or e-work tools out there. Again, a Google search on this topic yields big results.

Message Boards

I should talk for a moment about message boards. I like these kinds of tools for offline, threaded discussions. The nice thing is, most of these kinds of tools are free and simply require a web server for access. I see them as a way for online learning to mimic real-world environments with messages, discussion and interaction. Most of these tools are Freeware, as opposed to OpenSource, or there is a very minimal cost associated with licensing. Tools like Ceilidh, WebWiz, vBulletin, phpBB can add another dimension to a real online environment. You're welcome to brand it as an e-community if you wish.

e-Learning LMS/LCMS tools

I'll preface my comments here by saying that we've only deployed an LMS strictly as a prototype (as of the date of this post.) We're not actively using it to host and deliver content. This isn't an exhaustive list by any means. Simply entering the term "Learning Management System" into Google will yield a huge result.

There are very blurred lines between the Learning Content Management Systems and Learning/Learner Management Systems. Some tools may indeed allow you to manage a library of learning content and components as well as offering the delivery, hosting and tracking elements. My only suggestion here is to get some solid demonstrations of the product to see how well they will suit your needs. Do NOT, repeat, NOT, rely on just the product fact sheets. While many of the products available can eventually get to some kind of solution, the effort required to get there can be arduous and, frankly, painful and frustrating.

LCMS:

EEDO Interactive offers a tool called Force Ten which really, really impressed me. Positioned as a Web-based Learning Content Management System, it really offers good abilities to both manage content as well as develop it. The feature I particularly liked was a workflow-based development process. It was possible for you to actually author content through the browser window, and then add routing information to escalate the content to a reviewer or to another author. Very, very clever. Expensive to implement in-house, but clever. EEDO does offer hosted solutions which definitely make them more attractive.

TrainingPartner is the LCMS we used in my days at CDI. While we used it as a scheduling and course management tool, it is a full-featured LCMS. There are no hosting or development features on board, but the reporting capabilities are awesome. Important for me is that they're Canadian (Victoria, BC.) They actually recommended EEDO to me, as well as recommending KnowledgePresenter. (They are now the Canadian distributor for KP.)

LMS:

ELM is the LMS offered by Outstart, the makers of TrainerSoft. It was comparable in features to the LearningSpace LMS that was featured during the course. TrainerSoft (if I recall) offered both an implemented solution as well as a hosted solution.

aTutor is an open-source Learning Management System, developed at the University of Toronto.

Moodle is another open-source Learning Management System.

OCCAM is yet another open-source Learning Management System.

While "free" is never a bad thing, you should be prepared to do a lot of customization of the software yourself. If you're not comfortable with handling the nitty-gritty of systems administration, I'd recommend leaving these tools in the hands of those who have said skills. As much as I might appear "technical", I'm not that much of a code geek.

EnQPlus is kind of an all-in-one tool that I saw demonstrated by a former colleague. It didn't suit my needs at the time, but it might be worth further exploration if someone is curious. Contact Jeff Woods at Mindvault. He's reselling the tool.

e-Learning Authoring Tools

Now that we've talked about some of the planning stuff, I'd like to share some of my experiences with authoring tools. Where possible, I'll also offer some pros & cons about tools that I'm using and also to tell you what I'm using them for. (I know, I know...sentence-ending preposition...)

Content Prototyping:

PowerPoint. Nothing really beats PowerPoint for basic prototyping and some proof-of-concept work. We have a very specific look and feel that is applied to all of our publications and online presence, so I don't have to worry too much about re-designing navigation elements and suitable colour schemes. The ability to quickly add elements like audio and other multimedia are also a plus. The disadvantage for PPT is that I can't easily add any tracking code for an LMS. Not that its impossible, just very, very difficult to do on my own.

Authoring:

The tool I am currently using is called KnowledgePresenter. The current version is a vast improvement over the last (2004) edition. I like KP2005 for a couple of reasons: its somewhat similar to PowerPoint in that you can work on a slide by slide (screen by screen) basis for developing the content. It also lets you make use of a library for frequently-used items (headings, graphics, text boxes, etc.) For people who like granular control, there's an impressive properties sheet to play with. The Professional edition (the one I purchased) also ships with a simple LMS, as well as tools for screen capture and simulation-building as well as an assessment/quiz builder.

The folks at Knowledge Presenter also offer a great list of lessons, tutorials, whitepapers and other documents to assist you in flattening the learning curve.

The downside to KP is that it doesn't offer a big array of templates for pro-programming your learning. It also doesn't have any kind of "Outline" creator so that you can quickly lay out your major step/screen/slide headings. It's not as well documented as I'd like, but the user support forums are quite good and you can learn a lot from both the user community and the support staff who actively monitor the questions posted.

TrainerSoft is another tool I evaluated before moving to my current employer. Its similar in approach to KnowledgePresenter. However, it's a bit more expensive for the authoring tool. The vendor does offer an excellent simulation builder, but at $8000 USD it's quite pricy. It did offer a "tree" view of your Learning Object and the associated screens, which I liked, but I ultimately chose KP at my current exployer because of the bundled features and better cost per license. Having said that, their sales follow-up and customer service were excellent.

DazzlerMax was the third tool I looked at. I couldn't really relate it to any other application I've used. It presents a very interesting "timeline" view and a unique way of seeing the relationship between the various elements on a slide. However, I found this approach to be incredibly granular and it was tough to see a completed Learning Object when faced with a dizzying array of objects and properties.

Other tools like Saba and Authorware were either too expensive for my considerations, or they had an extremely steep learning curve, so they didn't make the cut.

Tools aside, I still tend to storyboard with pen & paper. Shades of my old graphics background, I guess. Old habits are hard to break.

Learning Object development links

The following documents and papers were really invaluable to me in my research and they clarified some of the mystery surrounding Learning Objects. I didn't "get" the whole concept of LOs because I couldn't equate them to the more "linear" process for developing materials for classroom training.

While there are some links over on the right side, these ones are a little more specific.

1. The Herridge Group: Joanne Mowat is the principal for Herridge, and she's also had a long involvement with the ISPI (International Society for Performance Improvement) in Toronto. On her 'White Papers' page are two documents I found to be very, very helpful: An Introduction to Learning Objects, and Learning Objects and Instructional Design.
2. AliveTek: This e-learning consulting firm has a number of Articles and documents worth reading, in particular, the Learning Object Storyboard, and the Learning Object Analysis Sheet. I use these two forms regularly.
3. Article: We're Not Designing Courses Anymore. An interesting article comparing traditional ISD with e-learning concepts.
4. Article: Gagne's Conditions of Learning. One of the articles I read made reference to his model, so it may be worth a look. Not e-learning specific, but interesting nonetheless. This article is a precis of Gagne's work.
5. Article: Repurposable Learning Objects Linked to Teaching and Learning Styles. A somewhat more in-depth paper on LO development. While there is some product-specific discussion, I found the overall content to be quite interesting.

Let me know if you find any of these useful. The big winner for me were the 2 papers from Joanne Mowat along with the storyboard and analysis sheets from AliveTek.

Course Observations and Clarifications

I mentioned some of these comments in my course evaluation and to some of you privately, but I want to offer a little bit of clarification on a couple of points on e-learning that S. made during his presentation, and also to clarify the "message" that the course may have delivered.

MESSAGE: e-Learning means software development

FACT: e-Learning does not have to be a software development project for your organization. There's a phenomenal amount of content and information that you can develop in-house without writing a single line of programming code.

MESSAGE: e-learning means spending/investing a lot of money

FACT: as with the myth above, you don't have to invest a lot of money in e-learning to get modest results. Even though we purchased an authoring tool where I work, that investment was relatively small. For organizations with almost no budget, there's a wealth of tools and resources out there. Google was a big research tool for me. Toss in some keywords and see what you get. Having said that, there may be some overhead costs that you can't avoid. But weigh those costs against the Return on Value you get from transforming your learning environment.

MYTH: you need to purchase a LMS or LCMS

FACT: e-learning can take place in your organization without either of these tools. When it comes right down to it, a LMS is basically a web server that can store your content and provide tracking mechanisms. However, if you want to start small, all you really need is some kind of tool to author content, and a means to distribute it. You can even start with PowerPoint, or some kind of HTML editor to generate content. As long as you follow some good e-learning planning and development practices, you can achieve great results.

My take on it: start authoring some basic content, get it distributed, then see what kind of tracking metrics you need.

Other random thoughts: I think there was a LOT of confusion about technology, and I sensed a lot of frustration about it. You'll gain more from a real understanding of the planning and strategy steps for building e-learning in your workplace than you will from becoming versed in the subtleties or SCORM/AICC and that sort of thing. I'm not a standards whiz and I don't plan to be. Nor am I a software developer or database administrator.

For those of you at the strategic, as opposed to tactical, level for e-learning...focus your efforts on planning and strategy. In the long run, the knowedge/skill/awareness outcomes are the same. e-learning just gives you a different vehicle to get you there.

e-Learning Openers

Hello, all.

As promised for my OISE classmates, I'll be providing a list of documents and resources and other stuff related to e-learning. Depending on what people want to see, I might even add other stuff like Best Practices for Virtual Classrooms, and stuff like that.

I apologize for not consolidating this list elsewhere, but there's a lot of content out there, and I figured that a simple e-mail wouldn't cut it.

Your comments and input are welcome.